(dark electronic music)
- [Mitchell] The crazy 2D shooter action of My Friend Pedro
is about one thing, and one thing only, the word cool.
It almost feels like it was developed
with the single-minded purpose of distilling
the pure essence of the word,
then somehow translating that into a video game.
And in that singular pursuit,
My Friend Pedro is a resounding success.
(gunfire)
My Friend Pedro is an arcadey score-attack game
that's all about maintaining a multiplier
by killing enemies quickly, avoiding getting shot,
and finding creative ways to take down each bad guy
to maximize your score.
It's an age-old concept,
but where My Friend Pedro sets itself apart
is in its sheer commitment
to making you feel badass as hell while doing it.
Bullet time is the core that My Friend Pedro is built on,
and while the mechanic itself is obviously nothing new,
its implementation here is one of the best it's ever been.
It serves not only as a vital means
of slowing down the action, but also as a way to enhance
the absolutely wild stunts that your character can perform.
Few things in video games can come close
to matching how cool it feels when you swing on a rope,
crash through a window in slow motion,
blast two enemies to smithereens with a shotgun
while in mid-air,
and then stick the landing on a skateboard.
The few things that do come close
are also probably things you can do in this game.
My Friend Pedro is made up of a ton of awesome moments
like this, and throughout its short but sweet
four-to-five-hour runtime, developer DeadToast
does a great job of introducing new mechanics
that prevent the action from ever becoming stale,
whether it be the aforementioned skateboard,
a weapon that opens up excitingly deadly possibilities,
stage hazards, enemies,
or its own twist on a motorcycle stage.
My Friend Pedro has some sort of new idea
for just about every level.
That being said, the first half is certainly
the stronger of the two.
The stunts flow together much more cleanly,
with very little downtime between enemy encounters,
enemies are less bullet-spongy,
allowing you to focus more on the spectacle of the action
as opposed to just surviving it, and overall,
the levels are just structured in a way
that allows you to have more fun with the environment.
My favorite level in the whole campaign is an early one
with a section that has you shooting your way
through a kitchen, with knives flying everywhere
that can be kicked into enemies,
a frying pan hanging from the wall
that can be used to ricochet bullets,
and then, in the room right after that,
there's another area where you can throw a frying pan
into the air to take out all the enemies above,
then kick the pan through a window in the next area
and take out all the baddies
without even stepping through the door.
The later sewer and internet levels
just don't come close to matching that degree of flow
from one area to the next.
That's not to say that the back half is bad,
and there are certainly high points.
One such highlight is a train level
that has you jumping from car to car,
leaving a trail of blood and body parts in your wake.
But the most creative and exciting levels
are definitely front-loaded.
Beyond the bullet time and the stunts,
My Friend Pedro simply feels great to play.
The animations do sometimes look a little wonky,
especially during wall jumps, melee attacks,
and when your character has to unexpectedly
land on an object, but it's a small price to pay
for how dynamically your character flips through the air,
seamlessly moving from a dive to a rope swing
and back to a dive,
all while conveying a real sense of weight and momentum.
While the arsenal of weapons is fairly limited
and conventional, there's a great balance between each gun
that helps ensure that no weapon ever becomes obsolete.
Shotguns, for example, are obviously great up close
and can blow enemies to pieces,
and you can use those pieces as weapons
to kick at other enemies,
but they lack the range and flexibility
of the dual Uzis and pistols, which can split their aim
to attack multiple targets at once.
Story is obviously not a focus of My Friend Pedro,
which is great, because it's pretty awful at telling one.
You play as a nameless and voiceless protagonist
who wakes up in the basement of a butcher shop,
where you're greeting by your friend, Pedro,
a talking banana, who tells you to do bad things.
The few jokes that attempt to bring life
to an otherwise dead script fall completely flat,
like one about a place called The Internet
literally being a series of tubes,
or how hardcore gamers all moved to the sewers
because there are always sewer levels
in violent video games
and they wanted to move someplace familiar.
(sighs)
Fortunately, the story doesn't get in the way
of the action.
The few cut-scenes that do exist are short and painless,
and any added dialogue takes place
while you're able to play, making it unobtrusive.
It's also a short adventure,
but the length wouldn't be as much of an issue
if there were some sort of reward
for playing the game on hard difficulties
or getting those S ranks.
There are leaderboards, and sure, bragging rights are great,
but it would have been nice
to have a few more tangible rewards,
like unlockable costumes, weapons, or anything
to keep me chasing those high scores.
Like the John Woo movies that it successfully emulates,
My Friend Pedro is all about the action.
And, that action is excellent.
The slow-motion gunplay, fantastical stunts,
and score-attack-drive mechanics all work together to create
one hell of an adrenaline-filled ride,
even if it doesn't give you much reason to come back to it
once that ride is over.
For more of My Friend Pedro,
check out all of our gameplay clips,
along with our video detailing the developer's
seven inspirations when making this game.
And for everything else, keep it here on IGN.